Just about everything is pretty much a trend now, even in the world of parenting. So-called experts dole out advice in books and on TV about how to raise your children, what not to feed them, how to dress them, and so on. Girls wear pink, boys wear blue, that’s just the way it is and that’s how it’s always going to be right? Actually, a lot of people don’t know that things were quite different back in the day, and they don’t need to stay the same now either.

A few decades ago, this was entirely the other way around; girls wore blue because it was thought of as a calm and gentle sort of colour, while boys wore pink because pink was considered strong and bold like its crimson cousin. Feminists decided to challenge this distinction and that’s why now the store sells baby girl dresses only in pink! When girls started wearing “boy colours”, the lads wanted to distance themselves from the feminine and began to wear blue.

It’s a wonder that never happened with pants and skirts when women started donning slacks. It isn’t far off from the origins of high heels though, which were first worn by noble European men centuries ago! Regardless of how it started though, the colour-based gender wars are being challenged once again in the world of today. While most stores do indeed still sell comfortable clothes and toys in blue or pink for boys and girls respectively, there are places that are savvier to the changing market and demands.

Now you can find those baby girl dresses in neutral colours like yellow and green, and who can be offended by the colour yellow, right? It’s such a happy colour! Even adults are switching it up a little and it’s pretty normal to see men in pink shirts and no one ever has an issue with women wearing blue. As kids, we probably didn’t even make the association between colour and gender until it had been drilled into our heads.

Lately, a lot of new parents are taking gender neutrality to a whole other level, and girls are being named with boy names now more than ever. Whether or not this is to be unique or as a form of challenging an outdated system during a time of public outcry over gender issues, the fact remains that you just can’t tell anymore whether you best friend’s newborn James is a boy or girl! So you should probably think twice before you buy that “It’s a boy!” balloon for the hospital visit.